Oh, internets. How we love you so. Unfortunately, many governments and corporations want to put an end to Internet neutrality. That means everything we take for granted on the internet, such as the equal ability to use the internet to promote ourselves, our work, and our beliefs will probably go away, and in its place will be corporate crap that's spoon fed to us, because as we all know: Big companies such as Disney and Viacom know what we love and have the consumer's best interest in mind. *Cough-cough*
But as much as I hate the thought of a Government or Corporate run internet, I can't help but notice that a lot of Pro-Net neutral people are taking steps to make it possible.
For those of you who haven't been reading the News, one of the biggest net related events to happen this year is Playstation Network getting hacked. This not only affected my Battlefield time, but it compromised the security of over 70 million accounts. The reason for the shitstorm? Sony filed charges against people who were hacking the PS3 to allow things such as Linux to run on them.
The case was later settled out of court I believe, but that's not relevant right now. What is, is the action taken by "Hacktivist" to show their distaste for Sony. From what I understand, what the guys were doing wasn't that big of deal - and while I believe Sony has every right to protect the integrity of their products and software, the original charges might have been too harsh.
But the problem with the actions taken by the Hacktivist was that it not only affected Sony, but innocent people who just happened to own a PS3. These kinds of actions gives the impression to both outsiders and internet users alike that a Government enforced internet isn't such a bad idea.
No one wants their identity or personal income compromised, and that's exactly what these guys did.
Another good example of asshatery by hackivist is the PBS website hack. Frontline did a show on Wikileaks, which did a critical look at the sites operations. Granted, I don't know much about Wikileaks, or the drama behind it. I know it exposed some pretty heavy shit, but that's about it.
Anyway, after the broadcast, a Hacktivist group decided to take action by defacing the PBS website, and the group responsible for it, named Lulsec, had this to say:
"We just finished watching WikiSecrets and were less than impressed. We decided to sail our Lulz Boat over to the PBS servers for further… perusing"
“Anyway, say hello to the insides of the PBS servers, folks. They best watch where they’re sailing next time.”
Sooo, they say something you don't like to hear, this means you got to troll them? That's not only pretty damn childish, but makes most arguments for Net neutrality null and void. This is the kind of short sighted nonsense that's going to end up getting the Government to bring the hammer down on the internet.
You could say that this is an act of free speech, but there's much better ways of expressing free speech than deliberately defacing people's shit.
Now, I can't be a total internet paladin. I've done some silly things on the internet - no where near hacking into someone elses webpage (I don't have the ability to do so) - but silly trolling nonetheless. But we have to think long and hard about our actions, and how we plan to operate if we want to actually preserve the internet as it is now.
We can't just go around hacking this and defacing that all willy nilly. These actions hurt Pro-Net neutral goals in the long run. There's no room to be short-sighted anymore, because both governments and corporations are taking steps to find ways to enforce the internet.
I mean hell, the thought of an Internet "Kill switch" is already proof enough that people think there's some sort of danger associated with the internet.
Why not prove them wrong by stopping the childish bullshit, and doing something that shows the internet can operate in its current form?
But as much as I hate the thought of a Government or Corporate run internet, I can't help but notice that a lot of Pro-Net neutral people are taking steps to make it possible.
For those of you who haven't been reading the News, one of the biggest net related events to happen this year is Playstation Network getting hacked. This not only affected my Battlefield time, but it compromised the security of over 70 million accounts. The reason for the shitstorm? Sony filed charges against people who were hacking the PS3 to allow things such as Linux to run on them.
The case was later settled out of court I believe, but that's not relevant right now. What is, is the action taken by "Hacktivist" to show their distaste for Sony. From what I understand, what the guys were doing wasn't that big of deal - and while I believe Sony has every right to protect the integrity of their products and software, the original charges might have been too harsh.
But the problem with the actions taken by the Hacktivist was that it not only affected Sony, but innocent people who just happened to own a PS3. These kinds of actions gives the impression to both outsiders and internet users alike that a Government enforced internet isn't such a bad idea.
No one wants their identity or personal income compromised, and that's exactly what these guys did.
Another good example of asshatery by hackivist is the PBS website hack. Frontline did a show on Wikileaks, which did a critical look at the sites operations. Granted, I don't know much about Wikileaks, or the drama behind it. I know it exposed some pretty heavy shit, but that's about it.
Anyway, after the broadcast, a Hacktivist group decided to take action by defacing the PBS website, and the group responsible for it, named Lulsec, had this to say:
"We just finished watching WikiSecrets and were less than impressed. We decided to sail our Lulz Boat over to the PBS servers for further… perusing"
“Anyway, say hello to the insides of the PBS servers, folks. They best watch where they’re sailing next time.”
Sooo, they say something you don't like to hear, this means you got to troll them? That's not only pretty damn childish, but makes most arguments for Net neutrality null and void. This is the kind of short sighted nonsense that's going to end up getting the Government to bring the hammer down on the internet.
You could say that this is an act of free speech, but there's much better ways of expressing free speech than deliberately defacing people's shit.
Now, I can't be a total internet paladin. I've done some silly things on the internet - no where near hacking into someone elses webpage (I don't have the ability to do so) - but silly trolling nonetheless. But we have to think long and hard about our actions, and how we plan to operate if we want to actually preserve the internet as it is now.
We can't just go around hacking this and defacing that all willy nilly. These actions hurt Pro-Net neutral goals in the long run. There's no room to be short-sighted anymore, because both governments and corporations are taking steps to find ways to enforce the internet.
I mean hell, the thought of an Internet "Kill switch" is already proof enough that people think there's some sort of danger associated with the internet.
Why not prove them wrong by stopping the childish bullshit, and doing something that shows the internet can operate in its current form?
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